


With this Band I dub thee King

by GraceEliz



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Crown Prince of Gotham Jason Wayne, F/M, Gen, Gotham elects Bruce King, Jason takes it very seriously, Modern Royalty, Royalty, more appearances to be made
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-07 12:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20975846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: He muses over the routine of the day as he dresses for gardening: first to order the large gardens and oversee the closing off of the kitchen garden and maze; oversee the team of gardeners; weed and cultivate the greenhouse; and then to the Blues and his unique purple Marthas; then Jay will wrangle him into his new suit, tie his cravat, slap his hand when he reaches for his eyeliner as always happens. He can’t wait for all this hassle to end so he can stop being aware of every single movement he makes. This is worse than Batman training.The crown is solid titanium, polished to a shine brighter than silver, set with rubies and gold, sat atop a velvet red cushion trimmed in purple braiding.





	1. Coronation

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S FINALLY HEEEEERE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crown is solid titanium, polished to a shine brighter than silver, set with rubies and gold, sat atop a velvet red cushion trimmed in purple braiding. The marble plinth used to be a birdbath, if memory serves correctly. Bruce rather thinks he removed the bath back before Dick came, because of birds eating the rosehips of his endangered Old English (imported at great expense by a trusted contact in the North). The low red rose-bushes his father planted twist around the foot of the plinth giving the effect of a fantasy set-up, especially with the blue and purple shrub roses Bruce takes the greatest pride in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally!! This fic really exploded on me. Leave questions and theories in the comments, or you won't get answers.

The day of the Ceremony dawns bright and clear. Bruce has been putting this off, putting it off, for years and years. He hadn’t avoided being crowned Prince at his sixteenth, but he’d left before they could crown him King at 20 and wheedled his way out of it all the way through Dick’s years in his life. It seems the news of Jay’s upcoming adoption has sent the society into a frenzy – the whole city, indeed, topmost Society belles to lowest scumbag. A frenzy so great that Sal Maroni had sent him a gift.

Sal Maroni had sent the whole family gifts, and Bruce isn’t sure how he should respond. Jason would know; he’s been buried deeper than ever researching in the library since the first Gotham press release. He is determined to become the most gentlemanly Crown Prince the country has ever seen and there is no doubt he’d succeed. His speech over the last months grew loftier and sharper and smarter, so clever with his retorts that sent insults soaring miles above most people’s heads. Jason could name every spoon and knife and fork, explain the differences between styles of cravat, order his own shirts in the tailors, rant about types of shoe and how people were wrong in their outfits, and all the while he’d been brushing up his fighting ability. He’s making out to be a ruggedly handsome rogue, not that Jay would accept being named thus. Being a gentleman, bringing honour to the Wayne name, that is what Jason’s goal is. He will prove to the city that he is better than his birth – and he will for a certainty be spectacular.

Currently, the library is a sprawl of notebooks and A4 paper, pens and pencils scattered over the desk. Jason had located and acquisitioned several dozen books on comportment, court traditions, succession, the rites of Gotham City, the roles of a Royal Family - that was only the books Bruce had seen him haul in from the car yesterday. Goodness only knows what the Manor herself has yielded up to the search. Everyone in the family has been carefully avoiding the buzz of stress Jason carries with him. Not only is it vitally important to Jay’s sense of family loyalty that this ceremony goes correctly, it’s a matter of personal obsession. The boy loves to read about Regency era England, court traditions in France, Isabel and Fernando Las Reyes Católicas, who’d conquered almost the entirety of Spain. This obsession crosses over into daily life too; Bruce is pretty sure Jay has a set of lesson plans drawn up to bring Dick and him up to scratch. Jay has exceptionally high standards for his family.  
Personally, Bruce finds it really amusing. He muses over the routine of the day as he dresses for gardening: first to order the large gardens and oversee the closing off of the kitchen garden and maze; oversee the team of gardeners; weed and cultivate the greenhouse; and then to the Blues and his unique purple Marthas; then Jay will wrangle him into his new suit, tie his cravat, slap his hand when he reaches for his eyeliner as always happens. He can’t wait for all this hassle to end so he can stop being aware of every single movement he makes. This is worse than Batman training. 

The crown is solid titanium, polished to a shine brighter than silver, set with rubies and gold, sat atop a velvet red cushion trimmed in purple braiding. The marble plinth used to be a birdbath, if memory serves correctly. Bruce rather thinks he removed the bath back before Dick came, because of birds eating the rosehips of his endangered Old English (imported at great expense by a trusted contact in the North). The low red rose-bushes his father planted twist around the foot of the plinth giving the effect of a fantasy set-up, especially with the blue and purple shrub roses Bruce takes the greatest pride in. The coronation has been timed to coincide with the fullest bloom of the garden, and since the buds had started growing the Manor had put up with being infested by a flurry of cleaners and gardeners who (answering to Bruce himself) have been preparing for this evening.

He will be crowned when the sun sets in five hours.  
Jason flurries through the ballroom in old jeans and a blue shirt he stole from Dick, swamped by the thing, ensuring every detail fits his standard for “the event of all events, unprecedented in the entirety of the States.” He gestures at the fireplace enthusiastically, sharing his vision with the decorators, before breezing on into the halls – presumably to harry the poor cleaning team in the entryway. Fondly shaking his head, Bruce returns to checking the Pennyworth Blues for flaws. The three most beautiful blooms will be set inside the crown, to be distributed to his three most esteemed guests. Honestly, he has no idea who is on the guest list. He left that to Alfred, Jason and Dick. It would be nice if Clark and Diana could come – if she does then Diana will certainly be receiving a rose. Perhaps he should send Sal Maroni one, as a show of respect? The symbol would not be lost on him, for sure. He’ll have to ask Jay when the boy comes to bully him into dressing for the ceremony. The suit, he’s been told, will fit him perfectly and be beautiful, but at the only fitting he was blindfolded and the Three Musketeers (as he’s taken to calling them this last week) had taken full control.  
His bank account feels much lighter already. 

A powerful motorbike tears up the drive, the roar echoing off around the grounds. That will be Dick, on his posh new bike – the one that looks like Captain America’s motorcycle in the first film – he very much hopes he doesn’t send the evenly raked gravel skidding onto the grass. The wrath of Jason (and the spotless Manor, but she’s been a subdued presence recently) will come down upon his older brother like a tonne of bricks. Any moment now.

“Dick! You’re skidding the gravel!” The engine shuts off, but Jay doesn’t get any quieter. “You need to go help Alfred do a last check of the public side of the Manor. Tonight has to be perfect, Dick, do you get that?”  
“Woah, Jason, I get it. No need to be so – so – combative!” bursts Dick in response to Jason’s demands, “It’s Bruce’s night and you’re going to make it perfect, yadda yadda, let’s get this over with already.” The front door thuds heavily, but the argument isn’t over. 

“Dick! Move your bike or good Lord above help me –”  
The door slams again.

There goes the tentative peace the boys had struck. Honestly, why did this continue? Sure Dick has a problem with Bruce but that’s absolutely no justification for taking it out on his little brother. After all, dwells Bruce, it was Dick who left. He wonders whether it’s worth leaving the voicemails he does. Sometimes he cries, others he screams, most of them are sad and wistful and a very few are just him giving Dick updates on the Manor and her antics, like the time she locked Jason out of the library for three days for losing a book. If he ever works out how the house is alive – well, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He sets his hand against the short plinth. “You’re excited, I think,” he tells the stone, “It’s been a long time since we had an occasion for you to show your beauty like this.” Perhaps it’s imagination, but Bruce thinks the stone warms under his palm in agreement.

It’s time for him to go in. There are four hours left.   
He picks two full blood red blooms from the winding vine around the patio doors to give to his sons as buttonholes if they want them. If not, well, Jason will know where he can best display them.

Guests start arriving three hours from sunset. Clark, Diana, even Oliver is here. Jason slides through the crowd more smoothly than even the most seasoned of society hosts as he greets the guests and assists in finding seats and bathrooms and cloakrooms and footmen. A very few people have arrived in horse-drawn carriages, which led to Jason letting out an undignified strained screech in the safety of the kitchen before organising a team to man the stables. He’s doing so well, Bruce can’t believe the pressure that his second son has willingly accepted. Mind, Catherine was exactly the same, before that waste of a husband got her hooked on drugs. What a woman she was. Jason’s competence and dedication to his goal of unifying the family and coalescing the image of royalty is the closest to Cathy’s he’s ever encountered, even from Babs and Alfred. Waiting for Jay to come tie his cravat at the top of the stairs allows him the time to still himself and reflect on the feat his boy pulled off.

None of the guests are wearing anything more than the slightest of decorative tiaras, thanks to the gossip pages’ vehement indictment of the impressive tiara an overconfident debutante wore to the Annual Wayne Christmas Gala last year. Certain members of the peerage are permitted small tiaras – the Mayor’s wife and daughter, for instance – by Jason, who carefully monitored the wording of the invites sent and RSVPs received. 

Jason has placed his and Dick’s circlets carefully onto display cushions in the first library – not the library Jay has been working in – to best show the glinting yellow citrine and blood-deep rubies off against a backdrop of ancient books. Each circlet has one of the crimson roses he picked earlier nestled in it, a nod to their father’s colours. The Manor always carefully monitors lighting all over the grounds, so that no bulbs go out and no valuable books are damaged, and tonight is no different. From his position on the top step Bruce is shrouded in shadows, whilst the brightness of the Main Hall makes jewellery sparkle as bright as the stars above. Jason steps out of a cupboard at his left.   
“When we go in, you enter first. Then Dick and I stay equidistant, I to your right. You have to space your steps perfectly, don’t stumble, chin up head level elbows in one hand ghosting the rail if you don’t walk exactly down the centre of the stairs do not under any occasion miss a step and do not trip for the love of God, Bruce,” Jason stops to heave in a breath, ready to continue his tirade of instruction. Before he can – much to Bruce’s gratitude – the Manor spits Dick out of the same cupboard, and dims the lights of the main hall. Jay’s grin flashes bright through the excited murmuring of the crowd. “This is it, Dad.” 

“Crown Prince Elect of Gotham, Bruce Wayne, and his sons.”

Jay nudges his back, so Bruce starts to walk, perfect pacing, the dead centre of each step, spotlit on the stairs by the Manor. The crowds applaud when he reaches the marble floor of the Main Hall, whispering over the blood red of his tie against the deep midnight and charcoal of his suit. He could feel, even from a meter away, Jay’s elation. The boy had pulled it off, the event of all events, the highlight of the decade – and Diana, smiling, sparkling, eyes lit with mirth and pleasure, she is the greatest compliment he can receive, wearing the Pennyworth Blue tucked behind her tiara. The Mayor approaches with his compliments and Bruce finds himself laughing at the praise his son preens over, making business deals, even refusing marriage offers to rich heiresses from other cities (he remembers the names, though, to pass on to Jason – business can always be expanded).

The sunset fades into red and orange, staining the scattered clouds shades of daffodil, highlighting the Gothic shadows of the exterior of the Manor. The patio doors of the ballroom look to be bleeding, fat drops of blood caught on twisted stalks and vicious thorns. The few permitted press members include Clark, who is taking candid shots of the family, and Vicki, who is focusing on action shots of the rich and famous attendees as well as hoping to film the crowning ceremony which is about to begin. Her camera is set up in prime position, on the very inner limit of Bruce’s garden. Not just anyone can get near the roses, much less the priceless crown the Guild created for him – the crown which is now in the hands of the man he chose: Jim Gordon, who is almost a second father, who many citizens consider to be the city’s chief protection after Bruce himself. 

He wouldn’t want anyone else here, truly. He lowers himself to his knees on the ruby-red velvet pad Jason arranged, ignoring the slight creaking of his knees on the descent. The last of the sun glares off the polished white titanium making the rubies look more bloody than ever. Later tonight when he sits on the roof with Clark and counts the stars they’ve visited to put himself to sleep he won’t remember the exact speech, or even his exact vows, but he will know the pride Jim showed and the sudden surge in awareness of his city – like his connection to the Manor – as Jim said the final line: 

“With this band which means our city, I crown you King of Gotham, King Bruce Thomas Robert Wayne, first of his line.”

Jason looked something like bliss, Dick like pride, he’ll remember that too. The festivities are blurred in his memory, but his waltz with Diana stands out to him as one of the best dances of his life. Holding her near made the Manor hum beneath their feet, Gotham – his city, the city alive in his mind – whirring in the distance like some somnolent dragon. In a few days, when the family and Clark are looking over the newspapers to collect clippings, Dick will point out that Bruce has never looked more at peace, and Clark will quietly murmur that his crown and her tiara are well matched, and that the scattering of a few diamonds into the crown would bring out the rubies.


	2. Save the Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You should ask Diana to come for a meal.”  
Bruce short-circuited. “What?”  
“A meal. Evening, possibly supper. It would start at – six,” Jay shuffled more pages of notes, “have no fewer than three courses, and Dick, Alfred and I shall leave immediately before dessert. After dessert, you two shall retire to the small library.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter!

“Bruce, sit down a moment.” Raising a brow at his younger son, Bruce did so. Jason’s papers were strewn about his claimed desk, piles of books and papers on the main library table and in ordered lines on the rug. His son looked over his reading glasses in much the same way Cathy always had (how had he not taken a single look at the sarcastic fearless street rat and immediately known he was Cathy’s). Jason’s gaze stayed levelly on his own.

“You should ask Diana to come for a meal.”

Bruce short-circuited. “What?”

“A meal. Evening, possibly supper. It would start at – six,” Jay shuffled more pages of notes, “have no fewer than three courses, and Dick, Alfred and I shall leave immediately before dessert. After dessert, you two shall retire to the small library.”

Bruce could do naught but blink in response to his son’s plans. It appeared the date was all planned out already, probably with Alfred’s agreement. 

“Remember to ask, though. She’ll not attend if you don’t ask.”

“Jason,” interrupted Bruce, “Jay, why?”

“Well. You are in love with her, are you not.”

And damn, he couldn’t make an argument against the truth of that statement. Jay shuffled a few maps into his hand, some of Gotham’s city limits with patrol routes, gang territories and police boundaries marked on, and one that looked suspiciously like transatlantic trade routes. The boy may as well have been running a criminal empire – better have him in charge of the family and Gotham city whole than let him drop into the Underworld to take over the entire planet. Bruce wanted to know the reasoning behind his son’s strangest request so far. “Why do you want me to ask her?” he asked quietly. 

“You’re in love, isn’t that enough?”

“You know it isn’t.”

Jay sighed, setting the maps down and removing his glasses. “Dad. You love her. I know it. Dick and Alfred know it. Clark knows. The whole goddamn League probably knows by now,” said the boy in mild exasperation, “so you should ask her. For you.” Bruce suspected that wasn’t all. 

“There’s something else.” Wait, wait, draw the answer out of the steel of Jason’s chest. 

“Yes. Diana – ” another pause – “Diana is a Princess. A legitimate and honest to truth princess of a nation. And I thought, she can bring us legitimacy. We’re known, sure, and I’ve worked hard to solidify our image and consolidate the ways we affect the city, but....” He gazed absently past Bruce. The quiet of paper and ink stretched. “We need that. I want us to be a true Royal Family, and for that we need connections. Trade deals. Something for us that no other city or community can claim: trade deals with Thermiscyra.”

Some part of Bruce shivers in shock at the audacity of such a scheme, but a larger part humbles itself in awe at his son. Truly the boy has his mother’s intelligence – this would make Cathy so so proud, bore her watermark all over. A trade deal – in what? The city has very little to export to such an isolated nation. Steel? Electronics? Maybe Gotham could act as a link to the greater world for the small island, an exclusive arrangement for the movement of people from the island. Evidently Jason thinks it can be done, has already started planning for what he considers an eventuality. Bruce sets himself down slowly. “Tell me what I should do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No stones for you to work out but feel free to leave your thoughts on this.


	3. Wasteland

The boy, the man, climbed onto the makeshift platform. His people waited below, for instruction and guidance and hope. 

“Gotham has been abandoned. Those whose responsibility it is to protect us have been brought low by creatures of darkness, the men of evil, the bringers of the things in the deep. Is this what we stand for, O People? Is this what we allow to happen in our borders?”

The people roared.

“No. It is not. Our King is missing, O People, and our family. All but three.   
I have never wished to be the King. I have never wanted that responsibility.

It seems I have no choice.

Our land has been quarantined, O People of Gotham, excluded from the world and left to weep, to drown in its own filth, to die.  
We have been left to die.”

The people were still and quiet. Not a person breathed.

“O, unhappiest of Peoples. Look around us.  
We have been left with nothing.”

The people buzzed in response to his fury.

“We have been left and they have taken everything from us. They have taken our strength, our heart, our King. They have taken our soul my brother. Our spirit, my sister. The world has stripped us bare and thrown us down but I tell you now O People, I tell you now:  
We are not dead!”

The people roared.

“We will not die, my People, I will not allow my father’s city to drown. We will rise up above! The sun will shine on this city as my father dreamed, our children will breathe fresher air than ever we have.”

His people waited.

“We will rise. We are one people, we are one city. Rich, young, old or poor, we must live as my father taught.  
O People, stand with me.”

The man dropped into their midst.

“Stand by me, my people, as you have stood.”

The crown flashed red and light.

His people parted to let him through, the new king.

“All hail, the King of the Wastes!”

The cry built to a roar at his back as he ascended the steps of the Old Court. His brothers waited. They stood silhouetted, the last of the line, the three last remnants of the great dynasty. The last line against the dark.  
Rubies, sapphires, and bright yellow citrines.

**Author's Note:**

> A dedicated chapter to anyone who works out the symbolism of the stones for each bat.


End file.
